School Report

We had a parent-teacher meeting at Kathleen's school last week (only these days they're called "Learning Conferences"). I was so pleased with her progress I just had to share:

READING

• Kathleen reads fluently at Level 11.
• She has a very good understanding of story meaning and structure.
• She consistently uses known strategies to solve unknown words.
• Kathleen is self monitoring her attempts and makes corrections.

Next steps:

• To continue reading for enjoyment and gain reading mileage.

WRITING

• Kathleen has a writing vocab of many words, both basic and interest.
• She can articulate unknown words slowly and accurately record the sounds she hears.
• Kathleen uses a capital letter and full stop when writing a sentence.
• She leaves spaces between words.

Next steps:

• To write additional sentences giving more detail.

MATHS

• Kathleen can recognise and write numbers to 100.
• She confidently uses imaging to solve problems.
• Kathleen can add groups together to 10 and record this number sentence.
• She is able to recognise and name basic shapes.

Next steps:

• Continue with adding using numbers to 20.
• Skip counting by 2, 5 and 10

I was especially pleased with the comment about Kathleen's reading. Basically I think she has gone as far as she can go in that class now, and the teacher is just giving her books to read for enjoyment rather than learning.

And on the subject of Kathleen's reading, she has read to herself, ALL BY HERSELF, three of the Rainbow Fairy books now, and has started the next one. The other night she was reading to herself at bedtime and we forgot to go check on her after 10 minutes. So she just kept reading, and reading, and reading, until she finished the book. That's my girl! Unfortunately that meant it was nearly 10pm by the time she went to sleep. But I love that she loves reading.

-Meg

Time Flies

Well, doesn't time fly. I can't believe it's the beginning of June and the last time I posted anything was February. [EDIT: I can't believe it's the beginning of July and I started writing this a month ago]

All our puppies left home, and now we have had two kittens join our family. One day in late April, I sent Peter and Victoria to the supermarket to get the groceries. A couple of hours later they came back with several bags. I opened one up to find two little faces staring back at me! It seems Victoria asked if they could go to the pet store, and Peter just couldn't resist once he got there. They are two little girl kittens, one tortoiseshell, one tabby. Kathleen immediately named the tabby Tiger. I suggested Lily for the other one. For the first couple of weeks Tiger wasn't growing at all so we took her to the vet and now she is happy and healthy, if still a lot smaller than Lily. Lily is the boisterous one, full of personality. Tiger is quiet but becoming more playful as she gets stronger. Both kittens are very patient with being carried around, cuddled and fought over by the children.

Kathleen is doing very well at school. She loves school, although doesn't really like getting up in the morning or having to hurry (but then again who does? especially on these cold mornings lately!).

Academically she is doing very well. She is reading at Level 9 (no one else in her class is at this level yet) [EDIT: Level 11 now], and every day brings home a book to read for homework. Her writing is good. For a while she would come home from school and just want to draw pictures, and her pictures would always include words in them. The teachers seem to encourage the children to sound the words out to themselves and write them how they think they are spelt. I guess proper spelling comes at a later date. It makes for some very cute and inventive spellings. I think my favourite is "I am hape" (happy). Kathleen also does well at math although I don't hear very much about it from her. She can count on her fingers, she can count quietly in her head while visualising her fingers, but she's not yet at the point of just knowing that 3 + 3 is 6 for example.

Kathleen's favourite part of the school day is what they call "motor programme". In the morning, after the teacher has done the roll, the children will all head outside for half an hour of exercise. Not just physical education but things that develop their motor skills, such as cone ball (trying to catch the ball in the cone that you're holding), skipping, balancing, hopping. She has learnt a lot of physical skills since starting school. She loves swinging on the bars and last term when I would come to pick her up from school I would always find her on the playground. There is a group of them from her classroom who are always the last to leave every day. School finishes at 2.25 but I usually arrive to pick her up sometime between then and 3 as we never leave before 3. Howver this term things are a bit different as Kathleen has started catching the bus home from school a couple of days a week. It was something she asked if she could do. It suits me not having to rush out in the afternoons to collect her. However on the days when Victoria is at daycare I still pick them both up. I think Kathleen feels quite grown up catching the bus and walking home by herself. She also gets to check the mailbox on her way home and brings me the mail. She and Victoria used to fight over who was going to collect the mail, now we have set days of the week about who's turn it is.

Kathleen is making lots of friends in her class. At the start of the year there were two girls and four boys in the class. Now there are five girls and seven boys. I regularly hear about the different children she is playing with, not just from her class but from other classes too. I quite like that about this school, not sure if it is a country school thing or not, but all the children seem to play together regardless of age. I think Kathleen may have had a tough time fitting in at first but this seems to have settled down now and she is enjoying playdates with some of the kids from her class. Last month Kathleen and Victoria went for a sleepover at their friend Molly's house (their first ever sleepover!) and then Molly and Olivia from school both came for a sleepover at our house.

The other big thing Kathleen is learning at school is how to swim. Every Wednesday afternoon the school bus picks the junior classes up from school and takes them to the swimming pool in town. Their teacher gets in the water with them and does various exercises with them, no doubt aimed at building up their confidence. And it is working. Kathleen has always been too scared to put her head or face under the water. Then all of a sudden, last week during her lesson, she ducked her head under. And after that there was no stopping her, she was diving down to get the rings from the bottom of the pool. Obviously there is still a long way to go, but her confidence has just increased so much, it is amazing.

With so much else going on, we have stopped going to ballet.

Finally, Kathleen has lost her two bottom front teeth (naturally, not because of an accident or anything). She's the first in her class to lose teeth. The tooth fairy gave her $5 the first time and $2 the second time. She was very excited and took it to school for Show & Tell (her other favourite thing I think). We went into town and she bought some stickers with the money and made lots of pictures. She loves drawing and creating pictures. Her drawings are very detailed.

And now, we mustn't forget Victoria.

Victoria is now three and a half. Sometimes I forget she's only three and treat her more like Kathleen. She is now going to daycare two days a week (Thurs-Fri) and to Playcentre two days a week (Tues-Wed). She has some good friends at each place. One little girl at daycare is her best friend and they play together all day. This little girl has a big brother who is in Kathleen's class and is one of Kat's friends, so the four of them all get on really well.

Victoria has been causing me much frustration since about the time she turned three. I remember Kathleen also went through a very similar phase at this age. She is trying to assert her independence, do things her way, do what she wants, doesn't want to do what Mummy wants. Which is all very well when all she wants is to pour herself a drink, but not so good when Mummy wants her to get dressed for school or brush her teeth or come eat dinner, etc, etc.

She often wants to have a go at doing things for herself and I know I need to step back and let her try more often. She's getting faster at putting her own clothes on which is great (just needs me to motivate her to actually do it), she's getting better at pouring drinks without spilling (just wish she'd shut the fridge door or let me know what she's doing), but I need to let her help me with other things more often.

Something I've noticed about Victoria is how much she enjoys both mazes and maps. She must have good spatial awareness. She enjoys doing simple mazes. Sometimes we've made our own out of blocks, other times we've borrowed maze and puzzle books from the library (Kathleen really loves the puzzle books). Victoria understands how to read a map, will get the map out in the car and ask where we are going. She often asks where something when we are driving, or where we are.

Victoria is very competent on the computer, knows how to turn on both her computer and the TV computer, and how to load up her favourite computer games or DVDs. Doesn't know as much as she thinks she does though and sometimes clicks on the wrong thing. I don't want to think what she'll be like in a couple of years when she can read, she'll be getting into everything.

Her favourite computer game is Pajama Sam. The girls got a game for Easter, and another one when we all went to a LAN gaming party at Massey (go geek family!). Victoria always wants to play Pajama Sam, either on the computer or pretend that she is Pajama Sam. She's always saying to me "I'm Pajama Sam, the new one" (meaning the one from the new game). Her style of play has really changed. She used to be happy to play with toys and dolls by herself. Now all of a sudden she wants to play pretend all the time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, Kat loved playing pretend at that age too. What is good is that the two of them can now play together, yet they usually want (need?) me to join in too.

At bedtime we usually read two stories to both girls, Victoria's story first then Kathleen's story. Kathleen's story is usually a chapter from a chapter book. Usually it's one of my old Enid Blyton books (currently we're reading Willow Farm). But about a month ago we got a Rainbow Fairy chapter book out of the library, which both girls really enjoyed. There are seven books in the series and we've only read two so far. Will be looking to see if they have the next book at the library when we go next. [EDIT: We ditched Willow Farm in preference for reading Rainbow Fairies and Myths & Legends (another library book) instead. Have read the first three Rainbow Fairies book now, and have got the fourth one on hold at the library, hopefully pick it up tomorrow).

So, anyway, we have been playing a LOT of Rainbow Fairy games since then. If I play then I'm usually the bad guy, Jack Frost, Victoria is ALWAYS Pajama Sam (the new one) even though he has nothing to do with Rainbow Fairies, and Kathleen is usually a fairy that needs rescuing or that I'm trying to capture/banish. As with all children's games, it gets a bit repetitive after a while. But both girls love it.

Finally, what else has been happening around here. Well winter is starting to set in after a long summer and warm autumn. Peter and I (but mostly him) cleared out our old woodpile that was under the ramp at the back of the house. He put down polythene on the ground and laid pallets down so we could stack our firewood neatly and tidily. He put up more polythene sheets along the ceiling and sides to make it weatherproof and it has mostly worked. We hired a log splitter for a couple of days and ended up cutting up quite a lot of firewood from tree rounds that had been sitting around (mostly in the bottom paddock) since we moved in over two years ago. I'm very pleased with the work we have done.

I am also very pleased with the ride-on lawn mower that we bought this week after getting a good deal at the Lifestyle Farmers Fieldday last weekend. It is so nice to look outside and see nicely cut, even grass, not too long, not too short, no big lumps of grass all over the place, no tyre tread marks, no muddy areas where the grass has been ripped up.

Now it is the beginning of July and winter is in full swing. Noticed snow on the Tararua's today. We've had some rather cold mornings the last few weeks, but only one real frosty day (much to the disappointment of two little girls who think Jack Frost is a character from their book, come to life). We have been putting quite a dent in all that carefully stacked firewood!

-Meg

Puppies

Just before Christmas, our dog Skye gave birth to seven puppies. We were taking bets on how many. As she is so young and little I hoped for three or four puppies. Peter thought five. We were both blown away when it turned out to be seven. But they were all healthy thank goodness, and have grown into seven beautiful pups.

I've never seen baby puppies before. They were so adorable with their eyes closed and unable to walk. It took about four weeks before they were running around and now you can't stop them.

Victoria was absolutely besotted with the baby puppies and inseparable from them. We had to physically shut the door to keep her away from them, but even then she figured out how to drag the stool out from the bathroom so she could reach the lock and open the door.

However once the puppies got mobile they have been spending more and more time outside. I'm not really very interested in cleaning up their messes. We kept them in a cage at first however soon discovered they didn't really want to stray very far from the house. In fact the hot weather meant that all they wanted to do was lie under the house and stay out of the sun. So no worries about them wandering off which is good.

With the puppies out of sight, they have dropped off Victoria's radar a bit. But she still loves them to bits. The puppies are all very compliant at being carried around by her.

In order to be able to tell them apart we gave the puppies all nicknames based on their looks. There were two grey/white puppies, one male and one female. The male one is called GreyBoy, the female Squeaky as she was definitely the loudest when they were tiny (now they're all yapping loudly). There are five black/white puppies, two male, three female. The males are Stripe (who has a white stripe) and Circle (who has a white circle shape on his forehead). The females are Diamond (who has a white diamond shape), Kinda (who kinda looks a bit like all the rest), and Skinky who was originally named Kinky because of the kink in her tail but Victoria renamed Skinky.

- - -

GreyBoy - Squeaky - Stripe - Circle

- -
Diamond - Kinda - Skinky

Skinky is Victoria's favourite. Diamond and Squeaky are Kathleen's favourites. Squeaky is Peter's favourite. GreyBoy is my favourite. Parting with them is difficult.

Peter put the puppies up for sale on Trade Me when they turned six weeks old, and within a couple of days they were all sold. We got a call about GreyBoy within minutes of the ad going up, from some people in Christchurch who had been looking for years. They will pick him up at the end of this week.

The first to actually leave were Diamond and Kinda, both on Wednesday. Diamond got taken away while Kathleen was at school (her first day) and I was devastated and didn't know how I would break the news to her that her favourite puppy would not be there when we got home. I cried in the car driving to school. This made Victoria think it was a big deal and the first thing she did when we got to school was to tell Kathleen that Diamond was gone. She shrugged it off and said "oh well, I like Squeaky too". I guess it helped that since day one we've been telling the girls that the puppies will be going to new homes one day.

However I was still dreading the day when someone wanted to take Victoria's Skinky away from her. Luckily the couple that decided to take her said they couldn't take her straight away and would come back at the weekend. That gave us a couple of days to prepare Victoria for it. In the end she was also rather blase about it. She gave Skinky a goodbye hug and kiss and handed her over cheerfully. Both Skinky and Squeaky are going to the same home, which makes Peter and I happy that they will be together.

So Diamond and Kinda left last Tuesday, Skinky and Squeaky went yesterday. That's the four girls gone and the three boys left. Circle and Stripe are due to go Monday and Tuesday, and we get to keep GreyBoy until Friday (ironic that he was the first to be sold but the last to leave).

I will definitely miss them when they're gone. However they're now at that chewing on everything stage and so in a way I'm glad they're going. Timmy and Skye are both handfuls but I'm happy to say they are both past that stage now. Their only problems are that Timmy pees on everything and Skye jumps on you and constantly wants your attention (worse than a child!). I'd like to take them both back to obedience school at some stage and I also think Skye would do really well at agility.

At the end of the day, we've got two pretty good dogs. And now six other families have also got some pretty good (and cute!) dogs.

Megz

Dear Kathleen

Five years and 11 days ago you arrived into this world. Tomorrow you start your first day of school. You are such a big girl now, I can't even begin to describe how proud I am of you. You are intelligent, beautiful, inquisitive. You ask lots of questions and think about the answers.

You love to draw, your drawings are so detailed including hands, bows, belts, eyelashes. Your favourite drawing subjects are people, usually yourself and your family. You got stickers and new pens for your birthday and your own ream of paper, and you do several new drawings every day.

You are becoming more and more independant yet you don't mind asking for help. You have become more independant in your play, and have gotten the hang of playing with the dolls and toys by yourself. We don't play pretend very often any more. I think this is because when your sister Victoria got old enough to play with us, she liked to play dolls rather than pretend and the only way we could all play together was with the dolls. You still enjoy pretending to be an animal, and a noise I have heard a lot over these school holidays has been you roaring at your sister or at me to try and scare us.

You still love being the centre of attention and you love telling jokes. Your favourite joke is "Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say Banana."

Bedtime can sometimes be difficult for you. Even as a baby you would rather be up and about than going to sleep. I think you find life too interesting to spend it sleeping. You still love TV and computer games. You got a new game for your birthday, Spy Fox, and have completed it several times now.

Your favourite books from the libary are puzzle books, where you have to find something hidden in the picture on each page. We have spent a lot of time at the library these school holidays. You are reading very well and can read lots of words. I'm not sure what your teacher will say when she gets to know you. Hopefully she can find things to challenge you.

You already know a few of the children that are going to be in your class this year, and you know lots of the children that will be in the next class up. Several of them came to your birthday party and you already knew them from daycare as well.

You are excited about starting school tomorrow. I am excited too, at least for now, tomorrow may be a different story. You have been ready for this for a long time now.

I am sad that we won't have so much time together any more, I will miss you. You have said that you are also sad about that. Since Victoria turned three a couple of months ago, she has been going to daycare two days a week and this has allowed you and I to have time together, just the two of us, and I have really enjoyed these days. You will always be my first baby, my big girl. You have had the luxury of having my complete attention for your first two years of life, and for the next two years after that have had my complete attention at least during Victoria's nap times. When she dropped her nap within the last year I didn't realise how much I would miss the one on one time with you. Now I am sad that I will only see you after school and at weekends. I hope that you and I can make the most of this time and still keep our special bond.

I am also a bit nervous of sending you out into the world by yourself (or so it feels to me). I wish I could be there to hold your hand, especially in the early days. But I have to let you go and do this on your own, and trust that you will be alright. There are some things that I know you are going to have to learn the hard way.

Soon this time will be just a memory. You will barely remember a time when you weren't a school girl, or that you didn't always know the friends that you have and are going to make.

But I will remember, my little angel. I remember when you were born, when you first sat up, when you crawled and then walked. I remember taking you to the zoo, to the playground, to the beach. Your first vaccinations, your burnt shoulder, your first fall. Your first time on a horse, your first time on a bike. I remember your first day at daycare and I will always remember your first day at school. Tonight Daddy and I told you that tomorrow will be one of the biggest days of your whole life. You disagreed and said that Christmas was the biggest. In years to come I hope you do remember this most important of days. The day from whenceforth our lives will never be the same again.








I love you my little angel. I love you very much.

Love Mummy

Dear Victoria

As one year ends and another begins, and as you have recently turned three years old, I thought it was about time I committed to writing a little bit about you. You are a most interesting child – at times easy-going and at times very difficult. I'm still not sure I understand you completely.

You keep your thoughts to yourself. If something upsets you, you cry. Or should I say, you have learned that crying gets you what you want. For example if you and Kathleen are fighting over something, you will cry and Kathleen will get told off. Or if you don't want to walk you cry and get picked up. But when you get told off you react quite differently. You go very quiet, you curl yourself up into a ball, and you cry silent tears. Thus it is easy to tell when you are angry or frustrated, but not so easy to tell when you are truly upset or sad.

You are both a social and non social person. Non social because you get very shy in group situations. But social in that you compulsively cannot keep your hands away from animals and other small children. Since our dog had puppies two weeks ago you are always asking if you can check on the puppies and if you had your way you would never leave their side. Prior to this you have always enjoyed chasing our cats around, hoping for a cuddle. You love babies if you see them and can be very kind and gentle with them.

You are a hands on learner, you like to try and do things for yourself. While this is a good quality, it can also be frustrating for Mummy, for example when you pour and then spill the milk. You use your hands to explore your world a lot, which can also be frustrating for Mummy when she finds you playing with things that you shouldn’t be. You have always experimented with whatever you find, and as a baby you ate quite a number of things that you shouldn't have! Interestingly, you learned to count with your fingers before you learned to say the numbers in order or read them (I'd say hold up four fingers and you would hold up the right number). I think this is an example of being a hands on learner.

Eating is one thing you do and don't like doing. You hate having to sit a table to eat. You hate to sit still. You would rather walk around eating or not eat at all. Yet you also love to sneak into the kitchen and get crackers or other treats to eat. You would much rather eat the things you find under the dining room table than eat at the table. You like sandwiches but you won’t eat the crusts. You still have a thing about eating playdough and sand, despite the fact I thought you would have grown out of this by now. I think you do it to wind me up sometimes.

Your Favourite Things

Painting always used to be your favourite thing at preschool, although you don't show as much interest in it any more. You enjoy painting – on paper, on wood, on your hands, your face, your clothes, etc. You love to dip your hands in the paint and to wash it off in the sink.

As much as you love getting paint on your hands, you also love washing it off. During the last few months as the weather has gotten warmer, whenever you have access to a hose you can be spotted there, hose in hand, hosing the ground, toys, steps, filling buckets. You also love the sinks too and have been banned from the bathroom at home because of the times you’ve almost flooded the place or have used up all the soap.

Your favourite thing at the playground is the swing. Since we have put up our swing at home it is one of your favourite things to do at home (second to playing with the puppies which is your number one favourite thing of all time). You love to swing high and I'm sure it won't be long before you learn to swing by yourself.

But, excluding puppies, your favourite thing to do at home is, and always has been, to play with dolls. You are happy to play with the toys by yourself or with me or sometimes Kathleen. Frequent play themes include the toys doing everyday activities like eating and sleeping, going away somewhere (usually you suggest America because your grandparents live there), or a toy will need rescuing. When you play with dolls you invariably take their clothes off and don't like it if anyone puts the clothes back on.

Your favourite colour has always been blue although this seems to be changing lately.

Your favourite TV show is Strawberry Shortcake.

Your favourite princess is Ariel, the little mermaid.

Victoria, it has been a pleasure to watch you grow over the last three years. You have always been happy to play by yourself, which has been very helpful when your older sister has been demanding attention. But with Kathleen heading off to school this year, you will find you can demand more of Mummy's time for yourself. I can already see you starting to assert yourself. "You could play with me" I often get told by you. And I hope we will have lots of time to play together in the coming year.

Love Mummy

Six Months Later

WOW! I cannot believe I haven't blogged anything for six months! Has it really been that long? Guess we've been kinda busy. And hibernating for the winter. And I've been really far behind with sorting, naming and uploading photos, and don't like blogging if I don't have photos to go with it. The problem is that we do too much stuff, and then take too many photos of it, and then we get too busy doing other stuff to sort through the previous photos and before you know it there's 100+ photos to sort through. Plus we take all our photos on burst mode (takes five photos at a time) because the kids are always moving and it you take five at a time at least one of them will turn out ok. But I've managed to catch up on the photos and now I can blog again. Also I think part of the problem is Victoria not having naps any more. So that's an hour a day I don't have up my sleeve any more.

But where to start??? Well, let's see. There haven't been any real life changing events for us the past six months. We're still living on our little farm just outside Levin, Peter's still driving to Palmerston North and back every day for work. Victoria has just turned three and Kathleen will be five in January. The girls and I go to Playcentre on Tuesdays and Wednesdays now, and Kathleen goes to daycare Thursdays and Fridays. Victoria joins her on Thursdays and since her birthday has started going by herself on Mondays too. I chose to do it this way so that I would have one day a week with each girl on their own, and it would also give Victoria the chance to get used to going to daycare without Kathleen, before Kat starts school next year.

This term Kathleen has been attending "four-year-old school", which is run one afternoon a week at one of the local schools. It gives four year olds the opportunity to sit in a classroom with their peers and listen to a teacher, and also doing activities around a different letter each week. It's given her the chance to get used to sitting on the mat, putting up her hand when she wants to speak, listening to instructions, etc.

The last two weeks Kat has also been having visits at the school she will attend next year. She's been going for one morning a week, sitting in with the current Year 1 class. She knows at least five of the children in this class from the various preschools and activites she has attended. They won't be in her class next year, but at least she will have some friendly faces in the playground to look out for. When I've asked Kat what she's done at school, she has told me all about what she did at playtime but not so much about the classwork. Her teacher has given me her classwork and it's all been really good so I suspect she's just more interested in playtime because that's where she's learning the most. The first week she learnt to play hopscotch and the second week she learnt about tennis and bouncing a basketball. She has two more visits scheduled before the end of the school year.

Kathleen's learning is coming along really well and I think she will probably find school too easy. She is doing well at reading and can read several simple books, partly from remembering the story, partly from looking at the pictures and partly just reading. Her writing is doing well and she's working on her lower case letters. She absolutely loves drawing. Especially drawing people and faces. When she gets going she will sit down and draw picture after picture.

Even Victoria is getting in on it too. She has started drawing faces with eyes and mouths. She has also started wanting to write her own name. At Playcentre we write all the childrens names on their artwork and encourage them to do so if they want to. Victoria can draw a V and will attempt all the other letters (even if sometimes they don't look much like it). She is recognising some letters - V, K, M, and O for sure and I think maybe I and T, and I don't know what else. She also recognises most of the numbers too and can count to about 15.

Ok, so what have we been doing since I last posted anything?

Kathleen is still going to ballet. After a three week break during the school holidays, she was ready to go back again for another term and we are still going once a week. Have tried a couple of times to see if Victoria wants to do it too. She says she does, but as soon as she gets on the dance floor she freaks out and grabs me around the neck and won't let go. So I don't think she'll be the performer in the family.

At the end of July Peter's sister and brother and brother's girlfriend came to visit from Texas. The girls loved having Aunty Mardie, Uncle Richard and Taylor to play with and climb on and entertain them. We also took the opportunity to take the girls up the mountain to play in the snow, and take the Texans to Taupo for a few days. While there we also caught up with Peter's other sister.
We left home on the Sunday morning and got to the mountain in the afternoon. We went to Whakapapa skifield but the visibility was poor and it started snowing. We did a bit of playing in the snow and sledding but the weather just got too miserable and so did the kids. So we hid out in the chalet instead. Monday morning dawned bright and clear, and we went to Turoa skifield where we all had a lot of fun. Throwing snowballs, building a snowman, sliding down the slope. Tried some more tobogganing but the run was quite fast and neither girl enjoyed it too much. But overall I think they both enjoyed going to the snow and we'll have to do it again next winter.

September brought the Canterbury earthquake and thankfully all my relatives escaped unharmed. A couple of days later brought flooding to our neck of the woods. The rain on the Tararua's came down Potts hill and flooded our neighbours paddocks across the road from us, went across the road blocking it off, and flooded the cafe paddocks next door to us too. As well as many, many other farms in the area. Luckily we escaped unscathed since we are up on the hill. Which was one of the many requisites we had when looking for a property to buy in the first place.

This year we celebrated Halloween with our friends from Palmerston North. Lou hosted an Irish party with Halloween theme. We all dressed up and took the girls out trick-or-treating around Palmerston North. It got off to a bad start when we first arrived at Lou's house, to be greeted by Poppy wearing a Scream costume. Both girls were frightened. Victoria got over it pretty quickly when Poppy took the mask off, and was happy to be picked up and cuddled by Poppy even when she put the mask back on. Kathleen however got very quiet and mopey and grumpy. She didn't want to go out trick-or-treating. She would only go if I held her hand, and wouldn't knock on any of the doors.
After the first couple of houses where Poppy and I did the knocking, Victoria got the hang of it and was running up to the doors but Kathleen was still hanging back. Most houses we went to/past had no one home, but of the ones where people were home, all but one had treats to give out to the children. Some even really got into the spirit of it. I suppose we were out for about an hour. By the end Kathleen had relaxed and was getting into it too, also running up to the doors without me. They got quite a lot of lollies out of it and there are still some in the cupboard to be eaten. We've been sharing it out a couple of lollies a day (although I've actually forgotten about it for a few weeks now). I'm pleased they didn't try to eat the whole lot in one go, they are happy to have 2 or 3 lollies and then put the rest back for another day.

One of the girls favourite places to go in Levin is the lolly and ice cream store. If Daddy gives them some money they will keep it to spend at the lolly store. Their favourites are lollipops and bubble gum.

Also around the time of Halloween we had Guy Fawkes. We took the girls to see the big fireworks display at Manfeild and also had our own fireworks at home. Once again, Victoria got into it and Kathleen was frightened and grumpy. I was a little disappointed with the Manfeild display, mostly because it was on a bit too late and the pre-event entertainment wasn't that great. The fireworks were great but Kat didn't enjoy them and her mood rubbed off on me. Our fireworks at home went better. At first both girls were a little wary of the sparklers until they learnt how to use them and they both enjoyed that. Kat didn't like the noise of the fireworks.

Victoria turned three last month. It felt like she had been two for a very long time. Her birthday was on a Playcentre day and she had a birthday cake at Playcentre with her friends. Then she had a birthday party at home the following Saturday, inviting two friends from Playcentre and two friends from daycare. I will try and write about it in a separate post.

And now we are facing the countdown to Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it. I've already planned everything I'm going to buy and hope to get that done next week. I bought advent calendars and both girls are enjoying opening one each day. Of course for Victoria it's all about the chocolate but Kathleen understands that when they're all gone it is Christmas Day. We're not planning to go away or do anything special for Christmas, other than open presents and have a big dinner. After having had a really crappy summer last year, this years summer is shaping up to be a good one. It's been hot and sunny just about every day since Labour weekend (end of October). I've been planting vegetables in the garden and have had to actually look after them and water them regularly. But other than that we are loving the warm weather and spending as much time outside as we can, until the sun gets too hot.

And that is where I think I will leave this update. I promise I won't leave it so long next time! We've got lots of fun times ahead in the next couple of months, with the end of the school/Playcentre year looming, Peter's birthday, Christmas, and Kathleen's birthday. We're hoping to have an active, outdoor summer with lots of trampolining, bike riding and swimming. Both girls are now tall enough to stand on the bottom of the swimming pool in town and have their head above water. Victoria has heaps of confidence and will probably learn easily, whereas Kathleen's not so keen to learn but still has fun in the water. I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun.

Cheers,
Margaret

Ballet

(Written on 1st July, published in December)

Kathleen was involved in a ballet show last weekend. She did one show on the Saturday afternoon, one on Saturday evening, and one on Sunday afternoon. Plus three rehearsals during the prior week.

I started taking Kathleen to ballet about nine months ago. She enjoyed dancing around the house so much I thought she would enjoy it. Plus one of her daycare friends goes too. Term 4 last year we went to the 3.30 Tuesday class. I would pick Kathleen and Victoria up from daycare at 3, but inevitiably we wouldn't leave there till 3.20 and would be rushing to get to ballet on time. This year she was in the 4pm class. Which meant that I would pick them up and then even if we left at 3.20 we'd still have to hang around for nearly half an hour before ballet started. It wasn't enough time to go home but it was too long to sit around and wait. So in term 2 I changed their daycare day to Thursday so that we would be home all afternoon Tuesday and could leave at quarter to four. It worked most times although there was at least one time when I forgot about it altogether!

I think Kathleen enjoyed ballet but I'm not totally sure. She would sometimes complain she didn't want to go, but then she complains about going to daycare too yet when I pick her up she says she'd had a great day and loves it there. At the beginning of this term the girls learnt the dance they were going to do at the show. About halfway through the term they started doing nothing but rehearsing this particular dance. At one point I commented to Kathleen that I was finding it quite boring now just doing the one dance, and how did she feel. She confessed she didn't like it either. Did I put the words in her mouth or did she really not like it? Well, ever since then she has been really complaining she doesn't like ballet, doesn't like doing the dance because she gets tired, and doesn't want to do the show.

I felt really bad and considered letting her stop. But I said to her that she just had to keep going till the end of term, do the show and then if she still didn't want to do it then we wouldn't go back next term. I felt torn - I didn't want to push her to do something she didn't want to do, but I didn't want her to think she could just give up everytime something hard came along.

Last week we had rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at the theatre where the show was going to be, rather than at the ballet studio. Kathleen was very nervous / anxious / upset. She and the other six girls from her class had to sit together on the chairs, and the mums had to stand at the back of the hall. Kathleen didn't make a fuss, but when I checked on her she had tears running down her face saying she wanted to be with me. But I had to stay at the back and keep Victoria out of trouble. Soon it was time for them to do their dance and then we went home. That night she had nighmares. The second rehearsal went better, and the next one even better, as she got used to what would happen. She still kept saying she didn't want to do the show but I said she should.

Saturday afternoon I took Kathleen along to the theatre. I bought myself a ticket to watch the show and showed her exactly where I would be sitting. Then I took her backstage to get changed and ready. When the show began I ran around to my seat and was so proud watching her dance. I had tears pouring down my cheeks I was so proud of her. All the girls looked so good. Ok so they weren't in time and kept looking at the teachers to show them what to do. But the point was they were all there and looked so cute. They were mostly four or five year olds, with one three year old and one two year old. Afterwards I helped Kathleen get changed and then the two of us went back to the audience and watched the rest of the show.

By the Saturday evening and Sunday shows Kathleen was loving it. Her old fears had gone and she was her usual excited self. I'm very proud of her for sticking with it, even though she didn't want to do it. I'm glad she did it and found it was enjoyable after all. I hope she remembers this lesson in the future when she's up against something new or scary.

She still insists she doesn't want to go back to ballet next term, and I'm not going to make her. I think I'll enjoy not having to rush out each week as well.

-Megz